Trinity Sunday - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2005  

Along with Jews and Muslims, we Christians believe firmly that there is, and can be, only one God; but unlike them we believe that this one God is Trinity.  Believing this, we can claim that the man Jesus is also the one God, as is the Spirit of God that is at work in our world.

In his epistle today, Paul greeted the Corinthians: The grace of the Lord, Jesus, Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with you all.  Paul expected this to be the experience of every Christian.

Jesus we know – to some extent: human like us, deeply concerned about issues that we sometimes share; a deep interest in people, especially those getting a rough deal, but not only them – everyone; wanting that situation to change to one where everyone deeply respects everyone else.  These were his constant concerns because his sense of God –  learnt from the Torah, the prophets, his parents, and from his own personal prayer experience – was that God saw things that way.  His concern for people was not from a distance, as it were.  He was open to their friendship.  Remember the conversation in John’s gospel when the two disciples first met Jesus that time he came down to John the Baptist to be baptised.  It went something like this: Who are you seeking? Where do you live? Come and see! And (as the Gospel notes) they spent the rest of the day with him.

Paul expresses his wish that the grace of this Jesus be with us.  What does he mean? The word means “gift”, so Paul means the gift of Jesus to us, his self-gift.  Jesus, however, is the one who offers but does not impose.  That may be why Paul hopes it is our experience, but does not assume so.  Are we open enough to let that Jesus get close and possibly to change us?  Paul hopes we are.  He was open enough, and so he changed  - and he was so thrilled with the change that he wants the experience to be ours, too.

Then, because Jesus’ attitude towards us finds its source in God, indeed, is the human expression of God’s love, Paul continues: and may the love of God be with you all, i.e.,  may the God – God who is love – be with you: the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son (as the Gospel reminded us today).  I think it important that we don’t assume that we really know what love means – what God’s love means… but we know enough.  Do we hang on to the feeling that God must be the judge –  the detached, uninvolved, dispassionate rewarder of good people and punisher of bad – rather than the God whom we know loves us, unconditionally, of course (or it is hardly love)? Are we willing to let ourselves change?

We want access to this God, so Paul adds: May the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with you all.  There is only one God, but the Spirit, of course, is God – specifically God as “at work in the world”, as “in touch with us”, as “communicating”.  What is Paul trying to convey by the word fellowship?  I think he means connecting intimately – the sense of persons relating deeply – free to be themselves, to offer themselves, open to know and to accept the other.  “All that I am, just as I am, offered to all that you are, just as you are.”  Paul’s hope is that we enter into intimate contact with the God who is love, and who offers himself in love to us creatures, who as Jesus has shared our life, and is, as Spirit, ready now to enter into the complex weave of our day-to-day lives.

It is wonderful possibility.  It is Paul’s hope for every disciple.  It is the reality each of us can open to.  It is what we hope for for each other: May the grace of the Lord, Jesus, Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy Spirit, be with you all.